by Chris Chilton
- VIN 001 Dark Horse SC raised over $1M for charity at auction.
- Supercharged 5.2 V8 quietly confirmed at well over 700 hp output.
- Track Pack adds GTD tech with carbon wheels brakes and aero kit.
Talk about auction fever. The new Mustang Dark Horse SC is supposed to give buyers some of the GTD’s goodies without the supercar price, but the first car has just been sold at auction for a staggering $1.25 million. That’s probably 10 times what we expect the MSRP to be.
Read: People Laughed At The Mustang GTD’s Price, Then Bought Hundreds Anyway
But maybe the winner couldn’t help himself when a senior Ford exec took the microphone to gee up the crowd just prior to bidding started, and dropped a fascinating clue to the SC’s power output, something Ford has so far remained tight-lipped about.
“Under the hood we’ve got a 5.2-liter supercharged V8, well over 700 hp [710 PS],” said Matt Simpson, Ford’s executive director of customization. For reference, the GTD, which gets a higher-tuned version of the same engine, makes 815 hp (826 PS). And the regular 5.0-liter, naturally-aspirated non-SC Dark Horse makes do with 500 hp (507 PS).
Track Pack
All SC’s get the same engine, but the auction car is a cut above a base model, being a Track Pack Special Edition, which combines the Track Pack and Carbon Pack, and is only available in Shadow Black or Oxford White.
That means it has Brembo carbon brakes from the GTD, MagneRide dampers with a special suspension tune, 20-inch exposed carbon wheels and an exposed carbon rear wing that helps generate 620 lbs (280 kg) of downforce at 180 mph (290 mph). Inside, it’s a mix of track toy and tech showcase, with Recaro seats, Alcantara, carbon trim, and even 3D-printed titanium paddle shifters borrowed from the GTD.
“This car was made with one mission,” Simpson told the auction crowd. “To go and beat Europe’s elite sports cars.”
All For A Good Cause
For $1.25 million the SC’s winning bidder could have had any number of those elite sports cars, but before you accuse him of losing a bet, or his mind, you should know that there is a good cause involved. As Autoevolution pointed out, one hundred percent of the hammer price goes to Breakthrough T1D, a charity focused on type 1 diabetes research.